In the seventies when I was a kid my mom took me to see a magic show and this magician did the Zig Zag Cabinet. It totally fooled me. I wanted to do what he does. Then I got a deck of those TV Magic Cards and later on, the TV Magic Kit with all kinds of goodies in there. Later I would get my hands on the Tannen's Catalog of Magic where I bought the instructions for OOTW. I showed this trick to everybody and fried them lol.

Also at the time, The Amazing Kreskin had his own show on local tv. I remember he did a lot of card effects on the program, I couldn't tell if he was a magician or not, but..he did fool me.

What was your first time coming face to face with the unknown, or a great mystery that a magical effect can do? Someone once said that magic is primal, and I believe that. Can we produce that "awe " in our routines today which attracted us to magic in the first place ?

As clear as day i can remember being 7 and seeing this act on TV and suddenly realizing that magic didn't have to be chintzy tuxedo's and pointless fluff; it could be something genuinely unsettling and artistic. The original routine/concept was created by french magician Mac Ronay (snr) in the 1960's in a version that was technically better but presented with a much more comedic tone that didn't really suit the premise; The act was taken over by Jean Claude Hasle who refined it in to the darker performance you see here and who genuinely caused a stir all across Europe in the 1980's. I can trace a direct lineage to everything i do in magic back to this act and how it made me feel.

My first encounter with magic that I can recall was Marshall Brodien selling magic on TV. I was 5 and that's what got me hooked to this wonderful form of art.

One of my most memorable real life experience with magic was a performance of David Roth's Portable Hole by a local magician. I still remember the appearance of the big coin at the end. This is also why I disagree with Roth (in Coin Magic, I think) when he doesn't suggest to use this finale because it detracts from the overall effect. I understand it from the artist viewpoint but I would not remember this trick after 35-40 years if it was not for the final giant coin apparition.

The strike by New York City's public transportation workers ends after twelve days of traffic jams caused by the halting of subway and bus service.Police in Beverly Hills foil a plot to kidnap millionaire tire executive Leonard Firestone, but inadvertently kill the informant who had alerted them to the plot.Actor/race car driver Patrick Dempsey is born in Lewiston Maine.

But most important of all ...Season 2 episode 17 of Daniel Boone airs on NBC.

This was the episode that featured Channing Pollock as itinerant magician Fletcher Cameron.

I was nine years old and had already developed an interest in magic, but I had never seen anything like this. It was beautiful. I was especially "wowed" by the card manipulations. In particular, the fan productions.

Unlike today, it was not easy to learn how these things were done.

Eventually, I discovered Ganson's Card Magic by Manipulation and Marlo's Card Fan Productions and was able to work it out.The Marlo book is the best $1 I ever spent!

There were plenty of "wows" when I was a kid, but then I dropped out of magic for years, only reentering after being sentenced to three years of law school. In my absence, I'd missed much. Then I went to London, England for grad school and walked into Davenport's magic shop. Pat Page showed me Roy Walton's "Cascade," and I was completely floored. Shortly thereafter, Bobby Bernard showed me the so-called "Himber Coin Vanish." I remember thinking: if he opens his hand and that @#$%^ coin is gone, everything I know is wrong. It was gone and so was I back into the rabbit hole labelled, "Magic as a hobby--enter here."

Bob Farmer wrote:There were plenty of "wows" when I was a kid, but then I dropped out of magic for years, only reentering after being sentenced to three years of law school. In my absence, I'd missed much. Then I went to London, England for grad school and walked into Davenport's magic shop. Pat Page showed me Roy Walton's "Cascade," and I was completely floored. Shortly thereafter, Bobby Bernard showed me the so-called "Himber Coin Vanish." I remember thinking: if he opens his hand and that @#$%^ coin is gone, everything I know is wrong. It was gone and so was I back into the rabbit hole labelled, "Magic as a hobby--enter here."